Misreading Hayek

Johnathan Pearce (London) Opinions on liberty For quite some time I despaired of reading a review or discussion of F.A. Hayek's ideas from the socialist side of the street that did not present the Austrian economist and political theorist as some sort of monster, but in recent years there appears to have been some sign of thawing in attitudes as people realise that the old fellow, like his mentor, Ludwig von Mises, was laser-accurate in his debunking of the case for state central planning. Central planning, in contrast to the spontaneous order of the market - a term Hayek coined - has been a failure and it was wildly unpopular to say so for quite a while. But the weight of evidence from the bloodstained 20th century is too heavy to ignore. Even now, those relatively rare holdouts of central planning collectivism like North... [read full story]